March
1, 2002
African
Labor Scholar to Deliver Lax Lecture
What
happens to the sick when their caregivers—female family members—must
choose between providing care and working to keep food on the table?
Frederick Kaijage, professor of history at the University of Dar
es Salaam in Tanzania, will consider the burden created by the combination
of poverty and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa in a
lecture titled "Poverty, Exclusion, and the Crisis of Social
Safety Nets: Society and HIV/AIDS in Africa." As this year's
John Lax Memorial Lecturer for the MHC history department, Kaijage
will speak on Thursday, March 7, at 4 pm in the New York Room. A
reception will follow.
"My involvement
in the study of the impact of HIV/AIDS on families was prompted
by the loss of so many relatives, friends, and colleagues whose
lives have been decimated by the epidemic," said Kaijage,
who was raised and schooled in Tanzania. In that East African
nation it is estimated that one in twelve adults is infected with
HIV/AIDS and that the epidemic has orphaned more than 1 million
children. Life expectancy in Tanzania is expected to drop to forty-six
years by 2010 due to the spread of the virus.
Kaijage studied history
and economics at the University of Dar es Salaam, focusing on
African history and development economics, earning a B.A. with
honors in 1969. He received an M.A. in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1975
from the Center for the Study of Social History at the University
of Warwick in England. He returned to the University of Dar es
Salaam, where he teaches labor history and also served as director
of postgraduate studies and associate dean for the faculty of
arts and social sciences.
While Kaijage's initial
publications were based on his doctoral dissertation on British
labor history, the bulk of his postdoctoral research and publications
have been on Tanzanian social history, specifically the history
of mine workers and longshoremen, poverty and social exclusion,
and disease, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS. "Because of
my training at Dar es Salaam and Warwick, I am inclined as a historian
to pay special attention to the history of the underdog,"
said Kaijage.
In addition to focusing
on the "underdog" in his historical scholarship, Kaijage
applies his expertise to current socioeconomic problems in Africa.
"One of the reasons I wanted us to bring Professor Kaijage
to campus is that he's such a model of engaged scholarship, of
someone who is making their understanding of historical processes
useful in the present," said Assistant Professor of History
Holly Hanson, referring to Kaijage's recent work on United Nations
projects, such as the "Programme of Action for the Least-
Developed Countries," policies and strategies intended to
guide least-developed countries from 2001 to 2009.
The John Lax Memorial
Lecture was endowed in 1982 by professors Peter Lax and the late
Anneli Lax of New York University, in memory of their son, John,
a historian who taught at MHC in the mid-1970s. After John Lax's
premature death, his parents created a memorial in the form of
this annual lecture. The lecture is given by a historian of the
highest distinction to commemorate the work and spirit of John
Lax by making the latest advances in history accessible to the
public.
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